Further to the Vantage Developments thing – they have some non-standard stuff in here. I’ll copy and paste it for your information.

Non-Standard Items:

1. That the Developer pay a proportionate share for the construction of a flyover interchange to be funded 50% by the owners, with the remaining 50% payable by the City.

2. The existing sanitary trunk sewer system for the neighborhood was originally designed to accommodate a lower flow rate. The Developer will pay a prorated share based on ownership multiplied by 15.61% of the total cost of construction for a remedial trunk sewer system to allow for the increased flow.

3. The Developer will pay a Transition Area Enhancement Levy that will provide funds for the development of the zone surrounding the wetlands in the Rosewood Neighborhood which will include a rebate if a supplemental funding source is secured prior to construction commencing.

4. The Developer is responsible to prepare independent high ground water studies and to carry out any remediation procedures that the consultant’s study and or City deem necessary.

5. The overall neighborhood will have many amenities that the Developer has agreed to cost share with other developers at the time of construction.

I wanna know what these “many amenities” are.

p.159 is a summary of various fees assessed to developers per metre. If you’re curious it comes to $2657.10 per front metre with an additional Storm Pond Dedication Charge of $3,718.85 per hectare and a Servicing Agreement Fee of $2,262.00 per agreement. Also there is the “Trunk Sewer Levy, Primary Watermain Levy, Lift Station Levy, Parks and Recreation Levy, and Community Centre Levy calculated at an area rate of 169 equivalent front metres per hectare. Area rate: 169 X $2,069.60 = $349,762.40 per hectare.”

Now we’re onto the first instance of the Administration and Finance report. Numero uno is the annual report from the Advisory Committee on Animal Control. Numero, uh, deux is the Saskatoon Environmental Advisory Committee’s annual report. Three is a request for sole-sourcing the radio network, fourth is a request for two half-ton trucks and a “trackless” snow plough. There is also a bit about the water and sewer inspection rate review, the “Pesticide Reduction Awareness Campaign”, and the feeble response to Charlie Clark’s 2009 request for street events. Oooh and the travel survey, the results of which will be an excellent political football. There’s also a bit about the bike tax, sorry, the dedicated funding for Active Cycling Infrastructure, also known as the Active Transportation Infrastructure Reserve. Oh and bus re-painting, 36 hour parking limits, and front-street garbage collection.

Only 5 orders for destruction were issued last year for dangerous dogs.

The SEAC report is depressing. It’s all stuff we should have been doing a bajillion years ago, like LEED buildings, storm-water management, alternative transportation policies and emissions reductions. The SEAC is like a small squeaky proto-mammal trying to change the direction of the petroliferous dinosaur that is Saskatoon. We all know how that story ended, so the current SEAC will be left to repopulate the world after we all die from lack of car.

Huh, the Parks Branch has been herbicide-free since 2004. I figure, if you wouldn’t spray it inside on your carpet, why put it outside on your lawn? I dunno about you guys, but this household is herbicide-free. I recommend it, but then I recommend not doing anything that is ultimately pointless and will cost you time and money to boot. Also, whatever happened to just pulling weeds?

Next is the Administration’s weaksauce response to Cllr Clark’s request for info about temporary closure of streets for bikes and walking, aka Ciclovias/Parkways/Open Streets. Portland, of course, has a Sunday Parkways program that goes once a month, on, uh, Sundays. (Some great pics in that link.) Vendors come out and sell food and drink, the cops keep the peace, and people who otherwise wouldn’t walk or bike come out for the day. Calgary also has Open Streets. Some cities in South America like Bogotá have massive ones where over 2 million people come out every Sunday to have fun – they even have free yoga and aerobics classes. (Bogotá has been doing this since the 70s.) It sounds like a great thing that doesn’t require a lot of investment, encourages active transportation and healthy lives, and increases the attractiveness of Saskatoon to tourists. None of which matters since the Administration has no money for them. However, they are “open to receive applications for street closures from organizers of Open Streets events” so let’s get on this, people. Oh, but not this year, as applications would have to be in before March 1st. Goddamn bureaucracy. The report was delegated to a traffic engineer-in-training, whiiiiich tells you how much your City actually cares about this sort of thing. I imagine Charlie Clark also has several dead cacti in his backyard as well. (When you read the Letters bit next you’ll know what I’m talking about.)

The transportation survey has been covered elsewhere at length but I’ll pick a couple things out. First, only 3,500 households are going to be surveyed. They’re also going to over-sample U of S students. Let me save them some money. Students want to get to campus juuuust before their first class starts and they want to leave campus juuuust after their last class ends. Having hour-long service intervals in the evening is unacceptable. Also they want convenient access to grocery stores and bars, with increased service to shopping districts on the weekends during the day. Not to mention better Sunday service to campus for studying at the library.

They’re also going to ask people out of town about their travel habits. Really? Is 3,500 a big enough sample size?

The Active Transportation reserve bit is depressing. Sadly I think it’s going to be the most debated in an otherwise lacklustre evening. One fun thing I learned is that you can call in and report delinquent sidewalks, something I plan on doing early and often. (I may or may not be on first-name basis with the Parking Enforcement people already.) There are also some platitudes about how the city encourages active transportation. See above Ciclovia rant.

Next part is about the repainting of DART buses. I’ve squawked about this elsewhere (ourYXE podcast, out tomorrow) but it appears I was wrong on a couple points. They’re not spending extra money to paint the green buses blue — it’ll just be part of the regular maintenance schedule. I wonder how often the buses do have to be repainted. Anyway, only 10% of people surveyed recognized a DART bus as being green (I had no idea and I ride semi-regularly) so there’s no real point in maintaining a separate fleet when buses are in short supply.

One thing that might also get a bit of debate is the 36 hour parking limit and/or the front-street garbage collection (scheduled to return back to ‘normal’ by May 18th.)

The A & F report is repeated again in here. I’d copy-and-paste my previous remarks but that seems unnecessarily cruel. My beef is with the agenda-maker, not you.

Executive Committee report. If I was organized, I’d do a mini-writeup when I read these when they come out (an extremely sarcastic thanks to Sean here.) The Executive Committee is all of the councillors so it’s just like a baby Council meeting. (In larger cities the Executive is more exclusive.) This exec agenda is mostly RFPs for advisors for the P3 project that is the bus barn/city yard development south of the besieged Montgomery community. They’re looking for a Financial and Business Advisor, a Legal Advisor, a Fairness Advisor, and an Owner’s Technical Advisor. This starts on p. 333 if you want to read it and tell me what’s involved. I just can’t brain this, apparently. Also I know the letters are next AND I have season 2 of Downton sitting on my coffee table, unwatched. You people don’t know how much I sacrifice in order to bring you this information.